In cellular mobile communication systems, a Mobile Station (MS) typically communicates with another MS by relaying the communication through a Base Station (BS), even if the MSs are located very close to each other. However, when a distance between two MSs located in the same cell is very short, it may be more reasonable for them to communicate with each other directly rather than relaying through a BS. This technique is called Peer-to-Peer communication, or “P2P” for short. Particularly, an MS for performing P2P communication is called a P2P MS.
Compared with conventional communications performed through a BS, a P2P ad hoc system supporting direct communication between MSs may contribute to the following performance improvements. For example, data traffics such as file transfers, gaming, and video streaming may be directly exchanged between MSs without passing through a BS, thus reducing the load of the BS. The direct communication between MSs without a BS may contribute to a reduction in transmission/reception latency. Even though strength of the signals that MSs receive from a BS is irregular or poor when the MSs are located in a cell edge or a shadowing area, high communication quality may be ensured by the direct communication between MSs.
An example of a P2P ad hoc system may include Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi). Compared with Wi-Fi, cellular P2P is advantageous in that a BS may support efficient resource assignment in the process of starting initial P2P communication.
However, in a situation where some resource areas are used as resources for P2P communication in a cellular frame, if a plurality of P2P links are in communication in one cell and particularly, if two different P2P links are located very close to each other, interference may occur between the two P2P links that use the same resources, disturbing seamless P2P communication.